If Consciousness is a burden, some people are traveling light...

What is the correct attitude towards the not so bright? The conventional wisdom is that we should feel sorry for them, pity them, and promptly forget them. When large numbers of them turn out to vote for a stupid and evil administration, we briefly became more concerned. It is a problem for the rest of us that large portions of the American population are unable to connect the dots between things like SUVs and global warming or rising debt and the essential slavery of the American worker.

I think jealousy is the appropriate response towards people who live this way. They are happy at the expense of others and cannot even be held morally responsible because they are too dumb.

I had proposed this theory like 10 years ago and a friend of mine brought up the counter argument that people who are not very bright have a lot of experiences that they can't explain-- Things happen and they don't know why and that must be a scary and frustrating way to live. However, in my extensive observations of not-so-bright people, I've discovered that they are generally untroubled by things that they can't explain. They find the simplest possible explanation and move on. They also feel very little need to reconcile contradictory explanations. So, they can simultaneously believe irreconcilable things. (i.e. George W. Bush didn't tell the truth about Iraq/ GW is an ethical person unlike that lying Bill Clinton)

Among the many things that we don't discuss meaningfully in this country, I think some attention needs to be paid to the problem of the not-so-bright among us. As a democracy, we will not be able to survive too many of them. I think many of the not-so-bright could be turned into reasonably-bright people if they are caught early enough and educated. Today's packs of feral teenagers are tommorow's feral suburban parents. Scary thought.